橋本 健一

本研究の目的は,熟達度の異なるL2学習者が,目標言語の動詞他動性情報をどの程度有していて,それをどの程度リアルタイムの文理解プロセスで利用できているかを検討することである。そのために,特定の動詞に対する文産出傾向を調べるための文産出課題と,他動性が異なる動詞を含むガーデンパス文を刺激とする自己ペース読み課題を実施した。その結果,学習者が有する動詞他動性に関する知識とその知識の利用にはかなりの差があるが,熟達度が上がるにつれて他動性情報の利用が効率的になることなどが明らかとなった。

The present study examines the relationship between syntactic processing of relative clause sentences in L2 English and learners' proficiency of the target language. Two groups of Japanese learners of English at different proficiency levels, as well as a control group of English native speakers, participated in a self-paced reading experiment. They read subject or object relative clause sentences which are either lexically demanding or not-demanding. The results showed that the reading time difference between the two structures was evident only for the advanced-level learners and in the sentences with minimum lexical demands. The intermediate-level learners failed to show the reading time difference, regardless of the lexical demands of the sentences. The finding was attributed to the heavy lexical demands for the intermediate learners, which could consume most of the processing resources and leave few for syntactic processes. Implications for models of L2 syntactic processing and L2 grammar instruction are elicited based on the findings.

This study investigated the use of verb subcategorization information during sentence comprehension by Japanese EFL learners, using a self-paced reading task with the embedded anomaly technique. In order to observe when the syntactic structure was determined, filler-gap sentences were constructed as stimuli. Four types of verbs were used: simple transitive verbs, dative verbs, infinitive complement verbs and intransitive preference verbs. The plausibility of the direct object of the embedded verb was also manipulated. The results demonstrate that the high proficiency learners utilize verb subcategorization information of simple transitive verb; however they do not use it automatically as natives. The results also indicate that they cannot utilize that of other types of verbs. The low proficiency learners show the difficulty in processing the sentences with long-distance dependencies.

本研究の目的は、第二言語の文理解処理の自動性がどのように発達するかを、動詞の他動性情報の利用の効率性という観点から考察することである。そのために、英語熟達度の異なる日本人大学生を対象に、ガーデンパス文を題材とした自己ペース読み課題を実施した。その結果、英語母語話者がガーデンパス効果を示す領域で、下位群の学習者はガーデンパス効果をほとんど示さず、上位群も母語話者ほどの効果を示さなかった。このことは、熟達度の高い学習者でも、動詞の他動性に関する語彙情報をリアルタイムで利用することが困難であることを示している。

The aim of this paper is to investigate the difficulties Japanese EFL learners encounter in reading various post-modifications. First language (L1) psycholinguistic studies show that difficulties to comprehend sentences with relative clauses are attributed to processing difficulty of these structures. It is possible that the difficulties Japanese EFL learners encounter in reading such complex sentences can be also caused by processing difficulty, but little research has been conducted so far to examine this possibility. In this study we conducted a self-paced reading task to examine how Japanese EFL learners process English sentences with post-modification structures. The results of our experiment suggest that the ease/difficulty in comprehending these sentences for Japanese EFL learners also depends on processing difficulty. The detailed reading time analyses reveal that particular regions in the sentences are responsible for learners' processing difficulty. It could be a result of the violation of the canonical word order and/or the absence of relativizers.